The Sacred

Our next episode of The Sacred Reflections is with Shadi Hamid. Shadi, who was our guest on episode 31 of The Sacred, is a political scientist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in their Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World in the Center for Middle East Policy. In this episode he speaks to Elizabeth about how this pandemic is revealing our individual and national character...

Glynn was former Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Bristol where he was also a practising psychiatrist. He is a past President of the International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology and acted as an advisor to the WHO. He is also the author of ‘A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing’ and ‘The Big Ego Trip: Finding True Significance in a Culture of...

Claire Fox is the director of the Academy of Ideas and a writer, broadcaster and panellist on the BBC’s “Moral Maze.” She has also served as an MEP for the Brexit Party, a position which ended in January. She was our guest on episode 14 of The Sacred. In this episode Claire speaks about the importance of free–thinking at this time and how you can have different views to someone while still having...

Rainn Wilson is an American actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. He is best known for his role as Dwight Schrute on the American version of The Office. In 2008 he set up the creative agency Soul Pancake which makes content on a range of platforms and explores life’s big questions. In this episode Rainn speaks about how he grew up and returned to the Baha’i faith, the existential crisis...

Chine McDonald is the former media and PR lead and now head of community fundraising and public engagement for Christian Aid, one of the world’s largest and best known non profit organisations. She was our guest on episode 25 of The Sacred. In this episode Chine talks about how we have more in common than what divides us and how kindness becomes central in times of crises. This episode also featur...

Satbir is the CEO for The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and previously spent time developing campaigns and political strategies for the people’s movements and working as an advisor to the UN and the World Bank. He studied at Oxford, SOAS and as a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia. In this episode he speaks about his mobile childhood, how his mother’s Sikh faith has formed him, and why ra...

Teresa was our guest on episode 22 of The Sacred. She is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. In this episode Teresa talks about how Oxford is being affected by the pandemic, whether acknowledging uncertainty is a form of knowledge, and if wisdom and knowledge are the same thing....

Bim Afolami is Conservative MP for Hitchin and Harpenden since 2017. Before he became an MP he worked as a corporate lawyer in the city. In this episode Bim speaks about what he means by one-nation conservatism, his Nigerian heritage giving him a sense of the importance of politics, and his sacred value of equality of opportunity. Over the coming weeks we will be releasing short extra episodes in...

Sarah was our guest on episode 49 of The Sacred. She is a DPhil researcher in the Department of Politics in Oxford and the Head of Content at The School of Life. In this episode Sarah talks about adapting to life in lockdown and how her sacred value of learning is guiding her through this time. This episode also features a short voice memo sent in by Tom, one of our listeners. We would love to hea...

Ruth was the Chief Executive of Stonewall from 2014 to 2019 and worked there in various roles previously. She is now co–director of Deeds and Words and sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green. She is also the curator of The Book of Queer Prophets which will be released in May this year. In this episode she speaks about the joy her relationship with God brings her, her love of...

Over the coming weeks we will be releasing short extra episodes in response to the strange times we are living through. Former guests will be returning to reflect on how they are processing this season, if this crisis has crystallised or even changed what they hold sacred, and what it might tell us about our collective sacred values. In this episode, Elizabeth reflects on who we value and what we...

Rabbi Sacks is an international religious leader, moral philosopher and author. He was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years, and has written books that have been formative for many including ‘The Dignity of Difference’ and ‘Not in God’s Name’. His most recent book is called ‘Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times.’ In this episode he spe...

In this short bonus episode Elizabeth Oldfield reflects on how peace building practices can help us in this unprecedented public health crisis, and offers some possible reasons for hope. She also reads Pandemic, by Lynn Ungar, which can be found here: http://www.lynnungar.com/

Charles is a journalist, columnist and former editor of The Spectator, The Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. He’s also the authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher. In this episode Charles speaks about his sacred value of orthodoxy, his conversion to Catholicism, and why he thinks a good adversarial argument is one way to the truth.

David is a comedian, screenwriter, author and television presenter. He’s written novels for children and adults, the play ‘My Family: Not the Sitcom’, and the film ‘The Infidel’ among many other things. His most recent play, ‘God’s Dice’, is about science, religion and quantum theory, and he’s currently touring with a new comedy show ‘Trolls: Not the Dolls’. In this episode David speaks about his...

Beth is a novelist and the author of WHSmith's book of the year The Flatshare. She studied English at Oxford and worked in publishing before leaving to write full time. Her next novel, out in April, is called The Switch. In this episode she speaks about which novels and which writers we take seriously and why, the experience of suddenly having a public voice and the power of fiction to make us fee...

Sameer is Managing Editor for Arts and Books at Prospect Magazine, and has been a judge for the Costa Poetry Book Prize, the Forward Prize for Poetry and the Orwell Prize for non-fiction. He is also the author of Asghar and Zahra, a novel about a young couple born into the same British Muslim community and their first year of marriage. He speaks about his religious childhood, loving his time study...

In this episode you’ll hear our very first episode with a married couple, Richard and Lydia Ayoade (Lydia is also known as Lydia Fox). Richard will be familiar to many of you as an actor, director, writer and comedian, known for his role in The IT Crowd, directing films ‘Submarine’ and ‘The Double’, presenting Gadget Man, Travel Man and The Crystal Maze as well as numerous comedy panel shows. Rich...

Daniel is Baron Finkelstein, a Member of the House of Lords, and has a column in The Times newspaper. He is a former executive editor of The Times and advisor to John Major and William Hague. In this episode he speaks about the impact of the holocaust on his Jewish family, what drew him to politics and how he thinks about the moral responsibility of the political decisions in public life.

Welcome to a special second birthday episode! This week we have turned the tables and former guest, Ian Dunt, has come in to interview host Elizabeth Oldfield. After putting her guests through their paces for the last two years, Elizabeth takes her turn at answering some of the big questions sharing some of her own story. In this episode she talks about her sacred value of relationships, working f...

This week’s episode features a speech from our Annual Lecture given by actor Sally Phillips. You may recognise her name from Smack the Pony, Veep, Clare in the Community, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Green Wing, and more. Motivated by her experiences raising a son with Down syndrome, Sally fronted a BBC2 documentary called ‘A World Without Down Syndrome,’ exploring the ethics of pregnancy screening for...

This week, instead of a normal episode, we will be releasing the recording from tonight’s Theos Annual Lecture with Sally Phillips - actress, comedian, campaigner and former Sacred guest. We hope to share the recording with you in the next few days. In the meantime, enjoy Elizabeth reading this short poem by Wendell Berry.

Dr Gabriele Finaldi has been director of the National Gallery since August 2015. He was previously Deputy Director for Collections and Research at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, and prior to that a curator at the National Gallery with a focus on Spanish and Italian paintings. In this episode he talks about his Catholic faith, how to navigate an increasingly visual world, and growing up in S...

Note: we had some microphone issues with this episode, but we hope you'll listen as we deeply enjoyed the interview. Linda is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. This year she has been in California at a fellowship at Stanford. From 2007-2012 she was Director of a 12 million pound research programme looking at religion and belief w...

Miroslav Volf is one of our best known contemporary theologians. He is Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity school. He grew up amidst ethnic tensions in Communist Yugoslavia, and lived through the civil war which pit historically Catholic Croats, Eastern Orthodox Serbs and Bosnian Muslims against each other. Much of his work as a scholar and...